Organizers for the campaign to legalize medical marijuana in
Florida have
hundreds of volunteers and paid workers blanketing the state to collect
the roughly 700,000 verified signatures needed to land the initiative on
the state’s 2014 general election ballot. The number is rather large,
the campaign’s manager acknowledged, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be
done.

“It’s a big number we have to get between now and the beginning of the
year, but we’re confident we can do it,” People United for Medical
Marijuana campaign manager Ben Pollara told U.S. News.

It’s a big number we have to get between now and the beginning of the year, but we’re confident we can do it.

Pollara accredited Untied For Care’s extraordinary
signature-gathering numbers to the hundreds—and, on some days,
thousands— of unpaid collectors and paid workers “pounding the pavement”
throughout Florida. According to Pollara, the campaign’s efforts could
see a spike in signatures sometime in November.

“We have a statewide grass-roots volunteer effort going on that’s
bringing in five to 10,000 signatures a week and we just kicked back up
our paid petition-gathering effort, which by the middle of November
should be pulling in about 60- to 70,000 signatures a week,” Pollara
said.

Since July, United For Care’s campaign has collected around 200,000
signatures, more than half of which have already been verified by the
Florida secretary of state’s office. To be added to Florida’s general
election ballot in November 2014, the medical marijuana initiative needs
to collect 683,149 signatures, a task Pollara describes as a
“multimillion-dollar operation.” Money has been no issue for the
campaign, however, as it has been widely publicized that firm founder
John Morgan has personally financed
approximately 75 percent of United For Care’s funding to date.

Opponents of the medical marijuana initiative have been vocal as of late
about their fears of Florida becoming like California, a state where
cannabis is legalized for recreational use with minimal regulatory
interference. In fact, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a
challenge on October 24 with the state Supreme Court arguing the
language in the initiative is misleading and would result in “de facto
legalization.” Bondi’s arguments are scheduled to be heard in court on
December 5.

According to Pollara, United For Care anticipated Attorney General
Bondi’s stance on the issue, and that she’s simply mistaken when it
comes to the facts.

“We used California’s model in a lot of ways as a ‘what not to do’ when
crafting a medical marijuana law, but the one thing that’s similar is
that yes, this will ultimately be up to the doctor and their patient,”
Pollara said. “Our position is: Who better to make a determination of
whether you have a debilitating illness than a physician? It’s not a
decision that should left up to the state legislature or the state
bureaucracy.”